The start of Cody Bellinger’s career has been filled with a whirlwind of emotions. The 2017 National League Rookie of the Year has already played in two World Series, both of which he has struggled miserably. Now, with his torrid start to the 2019 season, Bellinger is knocking on Mike Trout’s door as the next possible best player in baseball.
By Louis Addeo-Weiss
In an era where the game of baseball is filled with a myriad of young and exciting players, Cody Bellinger, for my money, is atop of that list. While the likes of Kris Bryant, Christian Yelich, last year’s NL MVP, and Javier Baez are all off to great starts in 2019, none have been as good as Bellinger.
Also, an article discussing the best player in the sport would be incomplete and guilty of negligence were it to ignore Mike Trout, who, since becoming a full-time player in 2012, has more WAR, 67.1, than any player in the sport.
As we’ve come to expect over the past seven years, 2019 looks to be another MVP-caliber season for Trout. Trout’s 3.4 WAR through May 27th leads all American League position players and is good enough for second overall to Texas Rangers pitcher Mike Minor, who has posted 3.6 WAR thus far, respectively.
Cody Bellinger though seems to have discovered this, “whole other league,” Trout has been playing in with his play thus far.
For lack of a better word, Bellinger’s numbers are outrageous.
According to baseball-reference, through 52 games, Bellinger has already amassed 5.2 WAR, easily the best in all of baseball. Projecting that over 162 games put Bellinger on pace for 16.2 WAR, which would easily surpass Babe Ruth’s mark of 14.1, which he set back in 1923, for the best offensive season in baseball history. Bellinger’s 5.2 WAR is already a career high, surpassing his previous high of 4.2, a mark he reached in both his rookie and sophomore seasons of 2017 and ‘18.
Other than his aforementioned league-leading WAR, the 2017 NL Rookie of the Year also leads the sport in runs (48), hits (72), RBI (49), average (.383), on-base percentage (.469), slugging (.761), OPS (1.229), and OPS+ (222).
A trend following Bellinger, as it did the Cubs Kris Bryant, is the slow, but steady reduction in his K-rate.
During his 2017 season, Bellinger struck out 146 times over the course of 548 plate appearances, good enough for a 26.6-percent K-rate. 2018 saw him play in all 162 games, 30 more than he did in 2017, ending the year with 151 strikeouts in 632 at-bats, lowering his K-rate to 23.9 percent. Come 2019, and we see that number nearly cut in half, as Bellinger has only struck out 31 times in 224 plate appearances, making his 13.8-percent K-rate the lowest of his career, ranking 23rd among all qualified major leaguers. In the first two years of his career, Bellinger, according to Team Rankings, failed to crack the top-100 in the category. Now, he’s among the 25 hardest hitters to strikeout.
Not only has Bellinger taken his already impressive offensive skill set to a level none of us envisioned, but he’s continued to grow defensively as well.
Coming up as first basemen, Bellinger proved in his rookie year, the fact that he was capable at manning the outfield, appearing in 46 games across all three outfield positions. In just 366 innings in the outfield in 2017, Bellinger posted five defensive runs saved, as well two more at his natural first base.
Now, firmly entrenched as the Dodgers everyday right fielder, Bellinger is having a defensive season for the ages. In 46 games, 40 of which he has started in right, Bellinger has already amassed 14 defensive runs saved, the most among NL position players. The Brewers’ Lorenzo Cain is second with a comparable 13 runs saved. Bellinger’s 1.3 dWAR is second in all of baseball, trailing only the previously mentioned Cain.
While the chances of sustaining an OPS+ north of 200, batting average near .400, and amassing 16 WAR are rather slim, what is for certain is that, while Cody Bellinger was a good hitter before 2019, he’s elevated himself into the class of the elite hitters in baseball.
A year ago, after appearing in his second consecutive World Series, both of which the Dodgers lost, and where he hit a combined .114 with 23 strikeouts, the idea of placing Bellinger among the likes of Mike Trout, Christian Yelich, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Aaron Judge would have been absurd. Now, in this current moment in time, you’d be foolish not to say that he may be better than all of them.
